We are at a unique and important moment in the 100-plus year history of Labor Day — one where the meaning of the holiday may bear more relevance to more workers than ever before.

Right now, history is being made by workers across the country, including home care workers, fast food workers, adjunct professors, and more who are simultaneously fighting for living wages and higher minimum wages — and winning.

The national “Fight for $15” movement and the rising tide of low-wage workers organizing to improve their lives by way of legislation, city ordinance, ballot initiative, and forming unions in new industries are proving a compelling second chorus to the Occupy movement’s prior critique of corporate greed in America.

The wealthiest Americans have always lived in different neighborhoods than the poor, but increasingly they seem to live in a separate country. That is true here in the SouthCoast region and around the country.

Where CEOs in 1965 made 20 times more than their workers, the average CEO today is paid 331 times more than their employees. The rate of increase for CEO salaries from 1978 to 2013 was 937 percent, adjusting for inflation, more than double the gains in the stock market, while the average worker’s salary went up only 10.2 percent in the same period. In the mid-to-late 70s, the bottom 90 percent of households, which for decades had owned about two-thirds of all wealth in the United States, began steadily losing income. Last year, that trend crossed the 50 percent mark for the first time, so that as of now, 9 out of 10 Americans do not collectively own even half of the wealth in this country.

The traditional bridge between these extremes has been our vast middle class, which serves as an attainable aspiration and a launching point for millions of families chasing the American Dream. But that middle class is slowly being polarized just as surely as the country at large, with a narrow band joining the levels of the staggeringly wealthy and the rest being drawn slowly but surely into the ranks of the working poor. If present trends continue, there is the very real danger that there won’t be a middle class left in America, in any meaningful sense.

Workers can sense this shift. That’s why the labor movement is finding new momentum as the national “Fight for $15” has grabbed headlines from Seattle to Massachusetts. Workers understand what everyone from Pope Francis on down are talking about when they speak out against the dangers of rising income inequality. There is a palpable sense out there that while we’ve always had economic ups and downs, things today are different. It’s clear that working folks are suffering the downs while it’s nothing but ups for the very wealthiest among us.

Page 2 of 2 - Now, as evidenced by fast food strikes, national organizing amongst homecare workers, and efforts across the nation to increase the minimum wage and earned sick time, workers are fighting back.

Against the backdrop of record-breaking income inequality stands Labor Day and the idea it represents. That idea is the notion that all workers should get to partake in the growth and opportunity that springs forth from their work. It’s the concept that a successful year for McDonald’s should mean a raise for the folks at the grill; that universities charging higher-than-ever tuitions should pay their adjunct professors more than minimum wage; that homecare companies and nursing home chains profiting off an aging Baby Boomer generation should provide employees with a salary that allows them to care for their own families.

It doesn’t mean putting a drag on the economy. In fact, studies show that closing the gap in income inequality helps to create a more stable economy.

In this era of increasing income inequality, organizing together is the one guaranteed way to ensure our voices are heard so that the broader principles behind Labor Day aren’t just commemorated in speeches and slogans, but are put into practice. Time after time, in fight after fight, it is workers — standing up together — that achieve results.

More work remains in this fight for basic fairness. And we hope that the ideas behind Labor Day serve as a reminder of both the challenges facing low wage workers and the importance of their collective fight for a better life — not just on this day, but every day of the year.

Veronica Turner is executive vice president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and secretary of the SEIU National African American Board.